This application claims the priority of Korean Patent Application No. 2004-109681, filed on Dec. 21, 2004, in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and system for processing a broadcast Short Message Service (SMS) message in a mobile communication terminal and a mobile communication terminal equipped with the system so that a Main Control Task can determine whether or not the broadcast SMS message is a message of a registered broadcast channel, and that the Main Control Task cannot transmit Bearer Data to a Broadcast Management Task if the broadcast SMS message is determined to be a message of a non-registered broadcast channel.
2. Description of Related Art
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of software configured for processing broadcast SMS messages in a mobile communication terminal. The mobile communication terminal includes a Main Control Task which controls the mobile communication terminal, i.e., which functions as an operating system, and various applications each performing its own function while linking with the Main Control Task. A detailed description of the applications shown in FIG. 1, such as Handset Task, Diagnostic Task, Searcher Task, Receive Task, Transmit Task, Watchdog Task, and EEPROM Database Task, will not be given herein.
A mobile communication terminal equipped with an FM radio receiver function includes a Broadcast Management Task as the application. That is, the Main Control Task determines whether or not a Data Burst Message received from a mobile communication system is a broadcast SMS message and controls such that the Broadcast Management Task performs broadcasting. Under the control of the Main Control Task, the Broadcast Management Task controls User Interface (UI) provided for processing broadcast channels registered by a user of the mobile communication terminal and controls an FM radio receiver module for modulating broadcast channel frequencies, converting the modulated broadcast channel frequencies into voice signals, and outputting the voice signals vial a speaker.
FIG. 2 is a flow chart of a method of processing a broadcast SMS message in a conventional mobile communication terminal.
A mobile communication system collectively transmits broadcast SMS messages to mobile communication terminals over paging channels. The paging channel is assigned a broadcast slot. The mobile communication terminals monitoring the broadcasting slot receive the broadcast SMS messages from the mobile communication system.
The SMS message transmitted from the mobile communication system has the form of a Data Burst Message shown in FIG. 5.
In operation S110, a Main Control Task of the mobile communication terminal having received the Data Burst Message determines whether or not the Data Burst Message is a broadcast SMS message by making reference to fields ADDR_TYPE, ADDR_LEN, ADDRESS containing message sender identification information.
Currently, mobile carriers in Korea use the ADDR_TYPE field having a bit stream of ‘101’ in a broadcast SMS message, and use the ADDR_LEN field having a maximum value of 15. The ADDRESS field is made up of sub-fields shown in FIG. 6.
The Main Control Task can determine whether or not the Data Burst Message is a broadcast SMS message in operation S110 by making reference to the fields ADDR_TYPE, ADDR_LEN, ADDRESS containing the message sender identification information of the Data Burst Message.
If the Data Burst Message is determined to be the broadcast SMS message in operation S110, the Main Control Task transmits Bearer Data contained in a field CHARi of the Data Burst Message to the Broadcast Management Task in operation S120.
In operation S130, the Broadcast Management Task determines whether or not the received broadcast SMS message is a broadcast SMS message of a broadcast channel registered by the Broadcast Management Task by making reference to a value of a parameter Service Category constituting the Bearer Data.
In operation S140, if the broadcast SMS message is one registered by the Broadcast Management Task, the Broadcast Management Task performs broadcasting through an FM radio receiver module (not shown). If the broadcast SMS message is not one registered by the Broadcast Management Task, the Broadcast Management Task disregards the broadcast SMS message.
At this time, to perform broadcasting or to disregard the broadcast SMS message, the Broadcast Management Task controls UI so that various screens can be displayed on a display device.
That is, conventionally, the Broadcast Management Task determines whether or not the received broadcast SMS message is a message of a registered broadcast channel. As a result, there is a problem in that the Broadcast Management Task has to perform an unnecessary routine for broadcast SMS messages not registered by the Broadcast Management Task.